The present invention concerns integrated circuits, particularly fabrication methods, structures, and circuits for bipolar transistors.
Integrated circuits, the key components in thousands of electronic and computer products, are interconnected networks of electrical components fabricated on a common foundation, or substrate. Fabricators typically use various techniques, such as layering, doping, masking, and etching, to build thousands and even millions of microscopic transistors, resistors, and other electrical components on a silicon substrate, known as a wafer. The components are then “wired,” or interconnected, together to define a specific electric circuit, such as a computer memory, microprocessor, or logic circuit.
Many integrated circuits include a common type of transistor known as a bipolar transistor or bipolar junction transistor. The bipolar transistor has three terminals, or contacts: a base, a collector, and an emitter. In digital integrated circuits, such as memories, microprocessors, and logic circuits which operate with electrical signals representing ones and zeroes, the bipolar transistor behaves primarily as a switch, with the base serving to open and close an electrical connection between its collector and emitter. Closing the switch essentially requires applying a certain current to the base, and opening it requires applying a reverse current.
One class of bipolar transistor problems concerns the structure, composition, and fabrication of its emitter contact. This contact is a highly conductive structure that facilitates electrical connection of the emitter region of the transistor to other parts of a circuit. Conventional emitter contacts are formed from polysilicon using a self-aligned bipolar technology, a simple fabrication technique which accurately aligns the polysilicon base and emitter contacts of bipolar transistors. The self-aligned bipolar technology is widely used not only because of its simplicity, but because it yields bipolar transistors with shallow emitters and bases which in turn provide good switching speed and current gain. Yet, in looking to the future, the polysilicon emitter contacts, which have a higher than desirable electrical resistance, stand in the way of better switching speed and current gain—two criteria important to the development of faster computers and other devices that use integrated circuits.
One promising solution to this problem is to form the emitter contact from a material with less resistance than polysilicon. For example, aluminum has about one-tenth the resistance of polysilicon. However, the 650° C. melting temperature of aluminum is less than some temperatures inherent to the self-aligned bipolar technology. In particular, the conventional self-alignment technique includes outdiffusion and emitter-driving steps that require heating the emitter contact to 900-1000° C., which would undoubtedly melt an aluminum emitter contact.
Accordingly, there is a need not only for bipolar transistors with lower, emitter-contact resistance, but also for methods of making them.